14 



Farming of Lancashire. 



lows, with certain modifications according to particular circum- 

 stances : — 



Wheat, by a broadcast machine on ribbed furrows, 6 to 8 pecks per acre. 



,, if drilled, 2 ft. 6 in. apart, 4 to 5 pecks per acre. 

 Vetches, till June, and then transplanted with turnips. 

 Turnips and mangolds in drills 32 inches wide. 

 Beans, drilled. 

 Wheat or Barley. 

 Seeds for one year. 



I was informed on the spot that one field of wheat, manured 

 from the farm-yard, and sown by a broadcast machine on ribbed 

 furrows, with a dressing of guano in the spring, produced last 

 year 48 bushels to the statute acre, whereas that sown in drills 

 2 ft. 6 in. apart yielded from 32 to 36 bushels ; I do not know 

 whether or not this latter had any guano. A twenty-seven 

 acre field of turnips also last year, after wheat, with farm-yard 

 manure ploughed in with the stubble at the rate of 50 tons 

 the acre, and afterwards cwt. of bones dissolved in sulphuric 

 acid per acre, produced 40 tons of turnips to the acre; this 

 was the first trial of bones with sulphuric acid, and the result 

 most satisfactory. Both the drilled wheat and beans are sown 

 by the same implement, which consists of a single box or co- 

 vered barrow, fixed by an iron rod to the handle of a double 

 mould-plough, at such a distance that the seed falls 1 ft. 3 in. 

 from the furrow formed by the plough, which is drawn by two 

 horses ; one man of course holds the plough, and another the 

 handles of the box, which runs on a wheel, and has a small spout 

 through which the seed drops ; the two men walk side by side, the 

 box being kept in its place by the iron rod which fixes it to the 

 plough, and this latter covers the seed, not of course as it is 

 dropped, but in returning down the next furrow. I saw this 

 simple machine, which is Mr. Neilson's own contrivance, at work 

 sowing beans, and calculated that the two men and two horses 

 would sow about 5 acres in a day. Mr. Neilson has standing 

 room for 100 head of cattle, of which from 30 to 40 are milch 

 cows, the milk being sent to Liverpool, about 6 miles distant ; 

 he employs a large number of men and women in gangs of from 

 60 to 100, in hoeing, cleaning, and reaping, so as to get through 

 the work rapidly, and 14 horses. 



The rotation of crops in use by the farmers of the neighbour- 

 hood of Halewood, was potatoes, wheat, turnips, and oats, with 

 seeds or not ; but the failure of the potatoes has obliged them to 

 adopt in some cases beans as a substitute: they have no imple- 

 ments of any importance. 



Throughout the whole of the Earl of Derby's estates in this 

 part of the country, most of the farms have been held on life 

 leases, and are in the hands of men who have no capital to lay 



